In the beginning, there was the word—Nicholas Kazan's spec script—that told the story of a homicide detective drawn into the continuing and never-ending struggle against faceless evil

In the beginning, there was the word-Nicholas Kazan's spec script-that
told the story of a homicide detective drawn into the continuing
and never­ending struggle against faceless evil. It was a
script that moved and excited Charles Roven and Dawn Steel and
their partner, Robert Cavallo, at Atlas Entertainment-so much
so that the group acquired the script and moved quickly into pre­production
on "Fallen."

Roven remembers, "It's rare that you get a screenplay on
the spec market that is so clearly ready to make. With Nick Kazan
writing a thriller, you know that you're going to get more than
just a 'thriller.' You are going to get characters who talk about
important things in life that we all think about but don't always
share."

Kazan found the inspiration for "Fallen" in an elementary
concept. "I believe human beings are basically good and that
evil is a force that is communicated from one person to another.
I started to think about a film in which evil passes from person
to person. 'Fallen' evolved from that image."

Given the police angle of the script (coupled with its supernatural
edge), the producers immediately thought of Gregory Hoblit in
the director's chair. Hoblit's feature directorial debut, the
courtroom thriller "Primal Fear," had enlarged his reputation
as an accomplished director of police and courtroom dramas (he
had already won Emmy Awards for "Hill Street Blues,"
"L.A. Law" and "NYPD Blue"). Roven says, "Greg
knows how cops live and breathe. I'd really like to say that asking
him to direct was an inspired choice, except I really think that
it was the obvious smart choice."

Hoblit was attracted to the project after reading the script.
He explains, "Had it been just another police show, I wouldn't
have done it. But it was much more than that. It's the melding
of two genres: one is a very interesting police story, but more
importantly for me, the other concerns this whole other world
of the supernatural. The story becomes unique when these two worlds
come together. So I met with Chuck, I met with Nick and we were
off."

This exploration of the dark side was what hooked all of the filmmakers
from the start. Hoblit likens it to "driving down a freeway
and seeing a car wreck. You look. You're also going to read articles
and see things in the media that allow you to peer into that dark
world. We look, but we keep a safe distance."

Kazan describes the storyline of the film as a good man who encounters
a primal source of evil. "I don't believe that the film deals
with the paranormal at all," he elaborates. "It deals
with the normal. One of the characters in the film says more is
hidden than is seen. I think this corresponds to our sense of
reality. In real life, evil is hidden. Everything important is
hidden."

Hoblit's aim in directing was to keep the viewer in suspense,
seeing primarily through the eyes of the central character, Detective
John Hobbes. The director, remembering a conversation he had with
a detective friend in New York, recalls, "My friend had me
look at a beautiful street corner and asked me what I saw. So
I described the corner on this lovely fall night-people walking
hand in hand, the trees, the moon. Then he proceeded to tell me
everything that had taken place there in the preceding five years.
A suicide, a mugging, a murder, that sort of thing. What he was
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